There are annoying NPCs, rude NPCs, ugly NPCs and so forth. I only kill NPCs which are to be killed according to current quest logs.

However I choose not to kill them, because they can break quests.

For example if we kill Ysolda we can't finish the A night to remember, which is getting fixed in 1.5, but probably won't fix it if we already killed her.

Focus: Do you kill named NPC without having a quest for it? If so, why?

If you killed an NPC without knowing the consequence, did you learn about your mistake afterwards? If so, did you reload a previous save? What was your reaction when finding out this cost you a trophy/achivement?
Have you killed NPCs and now having reading this, do you regret that now?

Do you like the fact that the game will make some of these NPCs unkillable until the quest has been done? Is this another step towards the "no freedom and no consequence" type of we, the players, do NOT want it to be?

Niamh kills whoever she pleases, whenever she pleases.
It's what she does.
If she can't finish a quest that just gets roleplayed in.
Niamh's world is not really quest-dependant anyway, sure she does them but not in the sense that they are an all-consuming part of her life.

Personally? I would like to see ALL NPCs killable.

Gwyn : over 400 hours, level 62, murders 0, bunnies killed 0, items pickpocketed 1. Highest bounty 40 (and that's from Thalmor baiting, which I file under perfectly acceptable, just and righteous).

Good luck joining the thieves guild then.

Thats very similar to my stats, except I also have 33 necks bitten..

Additional: Niamh has murders and assaults in double figures, but no bunnies killed because she likes bunnies.
It's just people she hates - mostly humans.

I never kill friendly or neutral NPCs either. I simply see no point in it, even as an evil character(granted I never play "stupid evil").

"Stupid Evil" has nothing to do with it.
Niamh, for example, is definitely Chaotic Evil, or on a good/(bad?) day Neutral Evil.

I killed a blacksmith who was searching for a dog, but before I had talked to him. So then i get the quest by talking to guards, which says "talk to the smith". Arrow shows on his dead body.

After that, I don't kill 'em.

Unless their deaths are part of a questline, I don't kill anyone. I don't kill anyone if I don't have to. Unless they attack me first, because then it's justified.

I may be in the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild, but I'm typically a pretty amiable Dragonborn just trying to find fun and adventure in this crazy world.

If you say so. I define stupid evil as someone who does evil for no reason, and I don't play that style.

You can define it however you like - your character just has a different alignment is all.

Just my opinion, but alignments are too strict a concept to apply to TES. Fine in DandD with it's strict and vengeful gods, but TES gods are more concepts than personalities. Apart from some very specific actions, it's your general fame or infamy, not your minor actions and intent, that matter. After all, Tiber got to be a god by being enough of an arrogant, insufferable dike. Also the nature of the gods is shaped by the beliefs of mortals; Skyrim's gods are much less interested in your place on the good/bad graph than the same god's in Cyrodiil.

If it suits you to play chaotic good or lawful neutral or whatever, work away, but that was only ever intoduced into games as an aid to role playing when the genre was young and unfamiliar.

As broad strokes alignment still work - if only from a descriptive standpoint.
I've been playing RPGs for long enough to be comfortable in manipulating them to suit.

That said, I don't think it's right to say you can't apply them to TES. They may not be as nicely partitioned as they once were but as fundamental descriptors they work very well still.
Niamh may be Chaotic Evil but it doesn't mean she's not complex. I use the term as a basic description of her to counter the comment regarding "stupid evil".
It's a matter of differing approaches at the end of the day, but then to all intents and purposes Niamh actually exists, I simply connect with her world, so her character is more difficult to define in detail because I didn't create it.

Stabby stabby?

Arinbjorn doesn't kill without need. He swears he just gave a reeeeally mean look to that annoying priest in Whiterun, and then he fell to the ground. Dead. Almost like if anybody else just used a "kill" command.

Then he left the city and when he returned, the copse wasn't already there. Almost like if anybody else used a "MarkForDelete" command on it

...almost...

Ive never killed any named NPCs in skyrim.....

but the Dragons did

I think this comes down to personal preference, I like that quest specific NPC's can't be killed but to be honest it wouldn't matter to me either way. After Morrowind, I leanred not to go on random killing sprees. Besides, I am not a murderer so again it matters little to me.

Ummm...

Across all my Oblivion characters, I've only seen Lucien spawn twice. Total of 4 recorded murders. (And two of those were from a quest - fighting the slaves in the Arena. The others were from "friendly-fire" accidents in big mixed battles.)

Now, Lucien.... him, I've killed immediately. He's a badguy after all.


As for Essential NPCs. Honestly, I've never had a problem with the concept. Mainly because, except for a bug caused by a quest mod I was trying, I've never fought one. I don't play badguys, so I don't kill anyone except enemies.


(I play a bit more fast-and-loose in Fallout, but the darker atmosphere lends itself more to moral greyness. Like, I've taken out The Family a few times. And Roy Phillips always dies the instant I see him. But, then, I tried the "good" approach to his questline before. So I know where that leads.)

Killed some annoying townsfolk (Nazeem, etc) in my first playthrough, but I reloaded anyway. Every NPC is a good one, at least because they make Skyrim more populated.

To be fair to her she doesn't go on killing sprees - (well there WAS that one time in the guard tower outside of Whiterun, but that WAS justified) - she IS however a murderer, but only if you get in her way, or she's cross, or she has a grudge against you, or your species or your gender, or your race, or your occupation.
Aside from that however, she's perfectly reasonable.

I just murder everyone

I accidentally killed a Hunter